Foam rolling is a common technique and its benefits are well known. When foam rolling the back, a user will lie face up on a cylindrically-shaped foam roller with the roller oriented to roll lengthwise along the spine. The user may use the feet to assist moving the spine lengthwise over the foam roller. (See, e.g., FIG. 1.) While the benefits of foam rolling the back in this way are tangible, they are limited because a user's weight is distributed along the length of the roller. Once the user's body adjusts to the user's weight on the roller the benefits, while still tangible, diminish over time.
What is needed is an improved spine roller that can load the facet joints more directly and to a greater degree in order to provide additional benefits to a user beyond what the user could do with a foam roller alone.